Opening Phases
by vikung-fu
Summary: A very brief fifth Doctor and Nyssa adventure set between TimeFlight and Arc of Infinity. Fanwank included.


**OPENING PHASES**

**a very brief fifth Doctor and Nyssa adventure set between _Time-Flight_ and _Arc of Infinity_****  
**

**" '...For ages human life has been playing much the same tune with variations - but much the same tune. What we call human nature. The general behaviour, the normal system of reactions, has been the same. The old, old story. Abnormal people have been kept in their places. You don't think, Doctor, that that uniformity of human experience is going to be disturbed"  
- H.G. Wells,  
_Star-Begotten_**

The Valeyard had waited for what felt like an eternity. With eyes of the blackest evil he looked past time, past infinity and simply past everything. He could feel the other's personality clawing at the back of his mind, the impostor that taken his name. Yet he was far from damned yet.

The Doctor - the first of the fallen - had taken his face, taken his all and warped into a distorted mirror image of all he was and now he was ready to exact his vengeance. He watched as his previous faces spiralled before him and then, reaching out with his mind, he touched the essence of the being that had left him for dead - the scapegoat, the sacrificial altar upon which the Seer would be laid down to rest. He watched him closely, mimicking the movements of his face. Oh, the arrogance, the sickness that tainted this one. Yes, that one was ripe for the picking and fitting that now he, the true Doctor should wear the face of the one that defeated him in the heart and soul of the Matrix.  
A sudden inversion of his muscular features and his smooth black faded then twisted out like dry twigs from a dead tree, curling, curling, till he wore the face like an executioner's masque.

He was whole again, more than a Time Lord, more than the Other, and how fitting that the stellar engineer, the Kithriarch, Omega, would supply him with the means to bring about his former comrade's final damnation. The corners of his new mouth twitched in a hideous mockery of laughter.

"Now, Doctor, I shall deliver your final dismemberment!"

* * *

Private Calohan of the Fifth Fusilier Regiment stumbled, his feet bleeding through the broken soles of his boots. Broken, decaying bodies of both allies and enemies were now indistinguishable, the perished and the damned looking up at him with soulless, rotting eyes. 

Quietly, ushering the madness to the back of his mind, he continued his enlightened journey from the city, now laid claim to the unmoving corpses that lined its streets, the soulless recipients of the War to End All Wars. And then came the Scourge.

They had come from the direction of the most northward bound village, their harsh feet striking the corrupted stones beneath them. Calohan had heard of them long before this time. The Scourge, his comrades had called them, creatures that patrolled the boundaries of No Man's Land, watching the soldiers with their small pig-like eyes, accelerating the rate of atrocity that this war throve upon. The German soldiers who had made it to the edge of their trenches had once spoke of them as if they were the minions of Satan, come to reveal in this folly of the damned and steal away the souls of the mutilated soldiers who lay hanging from barb wire gallows, snatching any who were left unattended to on their way to the underworld. They had laughed at them then, called them maddened or sick in the head, then they too, had fallen foul of their quiet invaders, rushing up from the swill and filth of the empty land before them and filling the streets of the empty cities and villages, their iron boots crushing skulls beneath them as they divided and divided all those they encountered, slowly whittling down companies to a mere handful of men and then to crazed and terrified individuals, lone survivors amongst the broken homes.

Calohan turned on the splintered skin of his heals and through a haze of disorientation he began to run. The waiting Scourge broke cover, their black eyes tracking him through the streets and calling out to him. He ran and ran; sweat pouring down his face and into his eyes. A thin line of flame scorched the air above his head and he stopped suddenly, his heart hammering in his chest like a caged voice.

"Halt." A stoic, accented voice called to. "Stop where you are or I will shall you."

Calohan sagged, falling to his knees, his breath laboured and broken.

The voice's owner crossed the distance between them, pulling him up from his genuflection and turning him till they were face to face. In that moment Calohan felt his bowels give way, his trousers filling with warm and he gasped at the hideous, criminal face before him.

"I am Group Marshal Styx of the 12th Sontaran Death Company." The Scourge hissed through it's paper thin mouth. "You are now a prisoner of the great Sontaran Empire." It paused. "I will personally oversee your death"

His jaw went slack and shortly there after his epilepsy awoke.

* * *

The Doctor watched the time rotor with infinite patience, his youthful complexion betraying a wisdom older than life itself. Quietly, his sole companion, Nyssa of Traken watched, hoping for the moment when conversation would break the feathered quilt of his silence. He had been quiet for what seemed like an eternity, since Adric had passed away and Tegan had departed. Now, she prayed that somehow - someway - he would return to his former, talkative (perhaps chatty) young self. 

Reaching down his hands filtered across a series of switches and Nyssa became aware that they had arrived at wherever their destination was. Without speaking, he pulled the door lever up and stepped away from the hexagonal control console and outside. She followed, head bowed and instantly her shoes sunk in the ankle high layers of mud and filth.

The Doctor, however, seemed not to notice, his pale white shoes gliding across the surface as if he were an angel in mid flight.

She pushed herself to catch up with him and tentatively attempted conversation.

"Doctor?" She whispered in a subdued voice. "Where are we?"

He remained silent for a brief eternity.

"Earth." He said abruptly.

She nodded and patiently prayed that something would happen, anything to jolt him out of this dark, brooding mood.

Without warning he stopped and scooped a small slither of metal from the filth beneath him. Turning it gently round his fingers a look dark acknowledgement crossed his brow.

"Doctor?" Nyssa asked. "Doctor, what is it?"

"A rather anachronistic piece of advanced technology." He muttered, applying his bifocals. "Of Third Zone origin I'd say."

"This time looks too primitive for meaning for contact with extraterrestrials." Nyssa commented, glad that the Doctor at least had a distraction.

The Doctor's frown deepened.

"Yes," He said softly. "It is rather."

* * *

Styx let the shaking meat structure fall down into a grave of decaying stones and filth and opened fire, the raw beam of the Sontaran's weapon tearing a wound from neck to groin in the shuddering animal's body. 

"Pathetic." It snarled and reached down into the warm depths of the mortal's stomach. "I should have expected these soldiers to have consistency equal to our own. Instead I find myself time and time again dishonoured by their animal fear."

One of its minions grunted in admiration of Styx's elocution.

"They are obviously unfit for Sontaran domination." It groaned.

"Yes," Styx muttered. "Even their termination provides scarce spectacle. They are even less warriors than those accursed Rutans."

"Perhaps others will bring us more sport, despite their obvious racial impurity"

The Group Marshal nodded solemnly.

"I hope that is true, Major."

* * *

The Doctor looked on with contempt. 

"Sometimes I think they'll never learn; that the killing will be go on forever." He reflected, morbidly.

Nyssa tugged at his arm.

"You shouldn't dwell on these things, Doctor." She paused. "What does that device mean?"

He looked momentarily lost.

"It's a homing device." He mused. "Probably for summoning a larger Sontaran war fleet."

Nyssa looked up at him with shock.

"Sontarans?" She asked.

"Yes," He replied. "It looks as if they've finally brought their war here."

"But..." Nyssa stammered.

"But I don't want them here." He said, dropping the device to the ground and crushing it under foot. "Not now, not ever. Humanity can kill themselves all very well without the aid of the Sontarans."

"But surely if there is a homing beacon here then it must have been put here by one of these...Sontarans." She said the word uncomfortably, not knowing quite how to pronounce it.

The Doctor looked up, a grave expression etched on his face.

"Yes, I hadn't thought of that."

* * *

At first glance it looked like a field full of large domes, some kind of exhibit you might have guessed, until you realised that the domes were in fact the exposed tops of Sontaran battle crafts, imbedded in the soil. 

Styx looked out across the horizon, a litter of broken architecture and decomposing bodies filled the small black space of his eyes.

"Prepare the fleet for our glorious return." He growled, knowing that such a failure would be treated as far less than glorious.

The Sontaran Major saluted, partly out of respect but more out of fear.

"We leave behind this desolate animal colony for the great taste of war and victory in the Xenith quadrant!"

A deep, guttural throbbing filled the air and slowly the 12th Sontaran Death Company began to rise up from its shallow grave of filth.

"There is nothing here for the Empire; perhaps in several millennia they will have proved themselves worthy of Sontaran domination." He muttered and turned his back upon the former host world, his metal armour gleaming in the twilight as he advanced up the ramp and into the flag ship.

* * *

The Doctor watched on as the Sontaran craft rose high into the air, soft globes of silver, glinting like false moons. 

"It looks as if the Sontarans are departing of their own will." He muttered, watching the craft accelerate beyond the horizon.

"But won't they come back, I mean won't they try to colonise Earth?" Nyssa asked.

"I shouldn't think so," The Doctor reflected. "At least not this early in Earth's history."

"But how do you know?" She asked, daring him to reveal his knowledge.

He placed a reassuring arm around her shoulders and slowly she began to feel as if his long, dark night might be coming to an end.

"The Sontarans despatched a secondary scout in 15,000 AD and humanity was still considered too primitive for their use so I wouldn't worry about them returning for a long time."

He smiled his boyish smile.

"So where to now?" He asked. "I hear Metebelis III is quite nice this time of year."

"And what time of year would that be?" She asked as they began walking back up the hill towards the TARDIS.

High above the continual stench of decomposition hung in the air and around them lay the littered corpses of those who had fallen in vain.  
The War to End All Wars had ended itself and still Nyssa felt an uncomfortable darkness at the back of her mind. Like all who are truly innocent, or perhaps gullible, she shut the thought from her mind and followed the Doctor back into the comforting shape of the.  
She paused and looked up at the place where the blue twentieth century Police Box should have resided.

"Doctor..." She asked quietly to the young man, now submerged in the interdimensional darkness beyond the threshold.

He stepped outside again, back into the stench filled atmosphere.

"What is it, Nyssa?" He asked, a little irritated about this latest set back.

Nyssa looked at the surface of the jade marble pagoda, the jade marble pagoda that should have been the TARDIS, she reminded herself.  
"The TARDIS, it's..." She began a second sentence but was unable to complete this one either.

The Doctor smiled again.

"Oh, don't worry about that, it'll be alright once we get back to the main TARDIS."

She frowned.

"Then this isn't the TARDIS?"

"Well it is and it isn't." He smiled. "I'll tell you all about it on the way to wherever it is we're going"

And with that he ushered through the pagoda's open door.

* * *

The Valeyard looked out towards across dull, colourless Gallifeyan capital. 

The Doctor's arrival was imminent and he had grown tired of playing these games of power with the Castellan.

Soon his plans would reach fruition and the Doctor would be dead before that shambles of a trial would take place All the Valeyard need do was wait...


End file.
